Lex loci celebrationis
| Conflict of laws and Private international law |
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| Preliminiaries |
| Definitional elements |
| Connecting factors |
| Substantive legal areas |
| Enforcement |
Lex loci celebrationis, in Latin, is a legal term for a legal principle, of whatever origins, now found in the English Common law, meaning as roughly translated "the law of the land (Lex loci) where the marriage was celebrated", independent of the laws of marriage of the Countries of legal nationality or legal citizenship of both parties, or of the laws of the Countries in which the parties as persons are domiciled for the purpose of Family law, or resident, of whatever definition—and the assumption under the Common law that such a marriage, when lawfully and validly celebrated under the law of the land (Lex loci) in which the marriage was celebrated, unless Statute (or Legislation) or the Common law explicitly provides when certain otherwise lawful and valid marriages must be adjudged otherwise, is and must be presumed and considered also lawful and valid.
United Kingdom (England and Wales) and the British legal tradition
In the main part of the United Kingdom being the jurisdiction of England, or England and Wales, as well as in many of the other legal jurisdictions largely or partly following the British tradition of jurisprudence in addition to their modified local versions of the English Common law, the legal principle behind this legal term was modified, qualified and further elaborated both by legal developments in the Common law (Lord Dunedin's Berthiaume v D'Astous case (HL 1930) (AC 79), in which Lord Viscount Dunedin in the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords ruled that "If a marriage is good by the laws of the country where it is effected, it is good all the world over, no matter whether the proceedings or ceremony which constituted marriage according to the law of the place would not constitute marriage in the country of the domicile of one or other of the spouses. If the so-called marriage is no marriage in the place where it is celebrated, there is no marriage anywhere, although the ceremonial proceedings if conducted in the place of the parties’ domicile would be considered a good marriage"), as well as by codification by Statute (Foreign Marriage Act 1892, 55 & 56 Vict., Chapter 23).